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Cornell Fraternity Sued Over Student’s Drinking Death

The mother of a 19-year-old Cornell University sophomore who died after drinking heavily at a fraternity house in February filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the fraternity on Monday, saying her son was hazed and then left to die.

The student, George Desdunes, who was from Brooklyn, joined a chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon at Cornell, in Ithaca, N.Y. He was kidnapped in the early morning of Feb. 25 by fraternity pledges who bound his wrists and ankles with zip ties and duct tape, then forced him to drink until he passed out, according to the suit.

Mr. Desdunes was found unconscious on the same couch later that morning, his hands and feet still tied, according to the suit, which was filed by Mr. Desdunes’s mother, Marie Lourdes Andre, in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn.

“One S.A.E. pledge tried to interfere with the crime scene by having the zip ties removed before police arrived,” the suit claims.

An autopsy showed Mr. Desdunes had a blood-alcohol level of 0.409 percent, five times the legal limit for driving in New York and many other states, the suit says.

Some former pledges of the fraternity were charged with first-degree hazing and unlawfully dealing with a child in connection with the death. Cornell withdrew recognition of the fraternity; its members had to leave the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house. The chapter was suspended by the fraternity’s national headquarters.

A phone call to the national office was not returned Monday evening.

In a statement, Tommy Bruce, a spokesman for Cornell, said the university “neither condones nor tolerates hazing or the type of activities that we understand contributed to George’s death.”

“The matter is now in litigation,” he added, “and we will be following it closely as it progresses through the courts.”